Guy Clark’s debut, Old No. 1, did not sell many records upon its original release in 1975. However, over time the album has earned a reputation as a masterpiece that has inspired a zillion songwriters since. The list of notables influenced by Clark and this LP includes a host of prominent singer-songwriters, including Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett, Nanci Griffith, and Vince Gill. They have all proudly paid tribute to Clark in song and story.
Fifty years later, Truly Handmade Records, an independent record label and imprint established by Guy Clark LLC, has released Old No. 1: Revisited. It’s a track-by-track tribute to the original, featuring some of the best young(er) musicians working in the Americana and alternative country fields today, such as Margo Price, Sarah Jarosz, and Aaron Lee Tasjan.
Every song on the new release reveals both Clark’s songwriting skills and the gifted performers’ interpretations. Their renditions show a deep understanding of what made Guy Clark so special. The Texan wrote plaintive songs that used quotidian details to express elegiac emotions. The tunes were nostalgic yet mournfully cheerful. As the narrator of “That Old Time Feeling” sings, the feeling is that of “falling on its face in the park”. One laughs at the blundering fool while acknowledging the real pain involved.
The album’s more sentimental pillars, “Desperadoes Waiting for a Train” and “Texas 1947”, evoke a profound longing for simpler times. Clark was only 34 when the original was released, yet he was already wistful for a past he was almost too young to recall. Andrew Combs, currently in his 30s, captures this beautifully on “Desperadoes” with a shaky, aged vocal that fits the song’s elderly subject. In a poignant, ironic twist, the 75-year-old Rodney Crowell joins him on the chorus, sounding remarkably like the young man remembering his grandfather.
Conversely, Brennen Leigh approaches “Texas 1947” with the wide-eyed buoyancy of the six-year-old child witnessing a train tear through town like a “mad dog cyclone.” This sense of movement carries through the record: Sarah Jarosz enunciates every syllable of “She Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere” to signal a narrator who has cut all ties, while Jade Bird delivers “L.A. Freeway” with the palpable relief of a clean escape.
Other highlights include Margo Price’s rousing take on the free-spirited “Rita Ballou”, Kelsey Waldon’s celebratory “A Nickel for the Fiddler”, and Aaron Lee Tasjan’s reflective “Instant Coffee Blues”. They each put their distinctive stamp on Clark’s personal songwriting, revealing what made his songs so universal in their use of particular details.
Dan Knobler (Allison Russell, Lake Street Dive, Bahamas) recorded the album in Nashville and deserves credit for its clean production. The 50-year-old songs sound fresh and new. He’s aided by a top-notch crew of additional musicians on various tracks, such as Sam Bush on mandolin, Mickey Raphael on harmonica, and guest harmony vocals by Rosanne Cash and Ruth Moody.
It should also be noted that Pete Blackstock has written a new 100-page book, Old No. 1 at 50: A History of Guy Clark’s First Album. The work features interviews by Natalie Weiner and was edited by Tamara Saviano, the author and filmmaker known for the biography and documentary Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark. Proceeds from both Old No. 1 Revisited (album) and Old No. 1 at 50: A History of Guy Clark’s First Album (book) will benefit the Guy Clark Family Foundation.